


Forget Me Not (The Flowers are Blue)

by aliitvodeson



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies), X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Death, F/M, M/M, Odin's A+ Parenting, Post-Avengers (2012), Slow Burn, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-06 21:56:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14657010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliitvodeson/pseuds/aliitvodeson
Summary: Forget me not, dear friend of my heartthough the flowers be blue as your eyesthe road calls and bids me departbut remember me and none of my liesBefore the last cycle of Ragnarok, a group of Asgardians came to Midgard. When the Eternal Realm was destroyed and remade, their spirits were caught on Midgard, to be reborn again and again as humans, with no knowledge of their past lives nor of the effect that their absence will have on the lives left on Asgard. These are no ordinary Asgardians, of course, and the lack of their influence will steer one in particular on Asgard to the point of destruction.But there are souls in the universe destined to meet, and this is one such band of companions.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is born out of my hatred of the fandom assumption that Loki had zero friends, like ever. Have you ever hung out with high school boys? The pranksters are always the most popular kids. How the hell would Loki, the ultimate prankster, the trickster, not have any friends to giggle over jokes with?  
> Insert some A+ parenting from Odin, Ragnarok, and you get this fic.
> 
> This fic is in progress and unfinished - tags will be updated to be as accurate as I can manage them.

The walls are gold, and tremble with the strength of a far off battle. The echoes of it sound even here, this far away from the plains, but they crow louder as the hours pass. The defenses weaken, and he feels his wards tremble and fall, one by one. He paces, the long hours having worn a line in the otherwise spotless floor, has his fingers clench on empty air.

“Father.”

They approach him, and Hela opens her arms to him. And even though it aches in his bones to turn to his daughter for support, when it should be his place to be holding her up, he does. He lets himself be taken into her arms, lets himself be held onto so tightly, so warmly, and feels Fenrir brush up against his legs, slow and soft.

He aches for the chance to take them away, to keep them sheltered from this war, to give them safety and happiness as one single family. But the pounding of his heart is a ticking clock down to what he knows simply must be done. If not for his family’s safety, then for the good of the universe.

He kisses Hela’s forehead and pulls away.

“It is time, children.” Fenrir gives him a grin, all sharp fangs and dangerous jaws. Loki’s son he might be, but the wolf bares so much resemblance to the true warriors of Asgard, in his desire for blood and war. Loki can only nod at him, feeling none of the glee but all of the determination. “Where is Steinar? Arneth? The others?”

Hela looks down at her hands, and he can see the bones of her jaw working. Her flesh seems thin, too thin, and how deep her worry must go to affect her in such a physical manner. He reaches out, intent on placing his hand on her cheek, feed her some of his seidr, but she recoils before his fingers can touch skin.

“Hela?”

Never in this life has his daughter shied from his touch in such a manner, never has she given him so much reason to worry over her.

“They have not yet returned.”

“Not-” But how can he doubt her, when the hour draws late, and his friends are not by his side. His children, all of them, stand around him, gathered because he called. And his friends, the band of those most trust, they are not there. He looks around, as if Steinar might step out of the walls, with his blond hair and heavy smile.

Loki closes his eyes, and breaths deep. He feels the threads of the world around him, the lines of seidr woven into the earth itself. He runs his hands along one of those invisible ties, reaching out, searching. If he friends have returned to Asgard, that will be enough. He has only to sense them, and know-

“Father!”

Loki snaps his head back, at the sharp warning in Narfi’s voice, the anger in his son’s voice clear. The doors to their chambers are shaking on their hinges. Narfi draws his blade, a great two handed monster that even Thor has struggled to lift.

“We are out of time.”

Loki is liesmith, silver tongue, but he can not lie to himself about this. Can not lie about how the doors shake, and who would dare to be the cause. He draws himself up, twin blades filling his hands as he steps in front of his children. Fenrir bristles at his side, Hela gathers her seidr,  Jörmungandr a slithering mass in the darkness. Narfi looks to him, and nods, feet planted firm and heavy.

The doors burst open.   
Odin strides through, his armour chipped and dented, his beard streaked with blood. The hole in his eye sockets is freshly opened, blood see trickling out of the wound, and he holds his great speak with a trembling hand. But hold it he does, and points it forehead. The warriors of Asgard come, each of them with some mark of battle, injuries and holes in their armour, and trembling limbs that struggle to hold them up.

Loki could have sneered his mouth at their weakness, if not their numbers been so great. And how many more might wait out in the halls, still coming, to reinforce their numbers when he and his children have none besides themselves to trust upon. He would not count on his friends return, not if Odin was already in his halls, and their chance had been missed so completely. He would hope, yes, but he would not plan as though they would return.

His children knew that as well as he did.

“Loki!”

The Allfather’s voice cracks on the word, and Loki can only smirk. His fingers flex and settle on his blades. There is a moment, when the air in the room grows still, as they all hold their breath. Few know how this must end, many of the warriors of Asgard must still think that this can be averted. It all hinges on the Allfather’s words, on how he goes. But Loki knows the turn of the worlds, he has walked the space between them for so long, and he senses the crackle of changing seidr in the air. There will be no return, there will only be this moment.

“I name you traitor, oathbreaker, family killer.”

The air snaps with the force of the Allfather’s words. Fenrir growls his fury, and snaps his jaws around the leg of a warrior who dares to get too close. Loki moves one foot, and then the next, striding forward, and his children form a circle around him, keeping off the ranks of Asgard. They will not forever, but he has only to reach the Allfather. It is not so far a distance..

“I name you chaos bringer, world destroyer, honourless.”

The Allfather speaks as firm as he ever has, and the thunder rolls outside. Lightning flashes above them, against the high ceiling, setting the gold to crack and burn into rust. The winds fill the hall, and Loki hears the distant cries of ravens.

“I name you mother of monsters.”

Jörmungandr snaps his fangs, the sound of snake skin a course rasp on the floor of the hall. Half a score of warriors fall, clutching their faces, screaming their agony as the venom burns through their skin. Odin is meer paces away, and Loki moves ever towards him, feeling the tremble in the ground as the earth rolls and shifts beneath them. It is the very fabric of the universe, knowing what comes, knowing what must happen. They are too far along for it to be anything but this.

Odin’s face is as angry as ever, but it is in his one eye that Loki sees a moment of doubt. Of question, in that all seeing, all wise face.

But then it is gone, and Loki is raising his blades.

Odin swings his spear towards Loki’s chest.

Fenrir howls his rage.

Narfi gives a warrior’s wordless yell.

Loki and Odin lock eyes.

“I name you-”

He has not time to finish it, as Loki drives his blade into the Allfather’s throat. Blood splatters across his face and begins to burn his skin. A cry goes up, ravens, loud and angry, voicing their fury. The force of seidr that has been building bursts in a great flood, rolling outwards from where Odin’s corpse hits the gilded floor. Already the realm eternal crumbles around them, and Jörmungandr shrinks until his form is no more. Fenrir bows his great head, and is blown away on the winds that still circle around the hall. Narfi lays his sword, and doubles over as his wounds take him.

Hela walks across a fading floor, and her fingers clasp at Loki’s arm. He touches her cheek, and she leans her head into his palm, even as her flesh fades and he is left with a skeleton against his touch. He feels the tug, the call within his chest, as the void rising amongst them.

“And so it ends, father,” Hela breaths, her voice lingering even as the darkness overtakes them, and there is nothing of him left to hold onto her.

“No,” he whispers, “so it begins”


	2. Chapter 2

“You’re still having nightmares.” She strokes her hands up and down his back, a gentle touch, the fluttering of her feather light touches enough to raise up goosebumps as she passes. Clint rolls his face to the side on the pillow, just enough to see how Laura leans on her elbow, her face cast in shadow. He can hardly make out any of the features that he knows must be set in worry and love combined. It’s an expression that seems locked on her face since he got back from New York. “It’s been three months. Clint- What haven’t you told me about your time there?”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s always nothing, Clint.” Soft voice, and he could almost miss the way her fingers dig into his shoulder bone just enough, the nails catching along skin, if he wasn’t so attuned to the feeling of her against his body. “Nothing doesn’t wake you in the middle of the night, unable to speak.”

Her worry is a tight press on his chest, the gentleness of her continued inquiry when he’s already told her no, any other man could break. He should break.

“I promise. If there was anything you could do-”

Her sigh shuts him off, before he can finish the promise that sounds empty even to his ears. A weight settles against his shoulder; years of marriage have attuned him to the particular pressure of Laura’s head against his body, her deep exhale when she is at the end of her rope. Clint hoped he’d be the cause of that noise less than the children were, but in truth, he hears it so often, he’s so much less of the man he was trying to be. Her palm settles at the base of his neck, and Clint finds himself instinctively uncurling his fists, slumping completely against the mattress.

“I don’t have to be able to do anything. I just want you to tell me, even if I’m just as blind and confused as you.”

One steady breath. Even rise and fall of his lungs, although her hands curl over the muscles of his neck and he can’t quite hide how his head thuds with every pulse. She must feel it, for she presses her lips to his skin with heart touching tenderness, all slow and careful and ready to pull away should he give the slightest sign that it’s not what he needs.

There used to be more of those nights. When it was Budapest, and he needed time, and space, and he couldn’t handle the softness.

“Just tell me,” she whispers, and Clint closes his eyes.

The darkness is a little more grey, the pillow a little more wet, but Laura’s hands are just as steady against his skin when he feels the last argument slip away. It’s a clarity of decision that rarely comes to him, and not even Natasha can manage to simply ease him into speaking when he had chosen silence.

“Loki.”

“What about-”

“Please just let me say it. I don’t think.... I can’t say it more than once.” Though he’ll have to. She’ll promise here and now to never bring this up again, to never make he speak over this story, but he knows that it will come up. That she’ll insist on hashing out the details over coffee and in the shower and during every chore in the coming week because she never lets him walk away from his troubles.

“When he came through that portal, my first thought was that I knew him. It was a door to another end of space we haven’t even begun to consider, and when this total stranger came through, I  **_knew_ ** him.”

A long breath, a drawn out pause. Laura flexes her fingers around his next and grounds him, firm and sure and oh so careful. There is not a single hint of nails this time. Behind his closed eyes, he senses the brightening of the room, ever so gradually, ever so slowly.

“He looked wrong, during the fight. He wasn’t... He wasn’t what I expected.”

Against his own push of thoughts to keep this dispassionate and simple, he feels the rise of memories. Ah well, he could never do things right anyways. The blue eyes, the same colour of the scepter, and how he’d wanted them to be green. How Loki’s plan had been attention and drama and pain without any of the laughter he kept waiting for, as if someone would pull out a pratfall at any single moment. How Loki would call him by any name except by what he expected to hear from those lips.

“I’ve got these memories of him, in my head, and Laura.” A breath, another, he’s trying to find the space to ground himself but all he can feel is how there’s too much to let out. Thoughts keep swirling around in his mind, all those times he completely thought he knew what was going to happen and then. It. Just. Didn’t. Laura waits, patient and silent as he hauls in breaths like a man two seconds away from drowning.

“There’s too many memories for how long I was gone.”

He squeezes his eyes so hard that he sees flashes of white and grey and the tension makes him hurt.

“I’ve got years of memories of Loki inside of my head, and I know they can’t have happened, but every night there’s something new coming up, there’s something else arriving inside my mind. Something new I see him doing, someone new he’s hurting, and he’s the same every time except he’s not the Loki I met in New York.”

By the time he gets to the end, his heart is pounding and his chest is heaving. Sweat drips down his palms. His skin is clammy and too tight and it hurts to breath. It hurts to think. The words dry up on his tongue, angry and afraid and far too many for the moment. It’s not over, it’s never over, Loki is always right behind his eyes, beneath the surface of his thoughts, Natasha said she got him out, but he’s not gone, he’s right there, and he-

Fingers press at his eyelids. They push and push until he finally lets his eyes open. Laura stares at him, so close, and he doesn’t know when she shifted on the bed to get that close, but she is. Her face, against his, and she just looks at him. Steady, sure, her face so full of love and without a single trace of pity or disbelief.

When his eyes have cleared, and he can firmly focus on her again, she leans in, and presses a kiss to his lips. A kiss, and nothing more.

“Thank you for trusting me,” she whispers. Clint can only nod. His hand comes up to her hair, shaking, quivering, but as his fingers brush over the messiness that is her bedhead, the shakes slowly begin to fade. He settles back into his own skin. The blue eyes fade away from the darkness inside of his eyes when he blinks.

“It’s impossible,” and he keeps his voice low because now it has started to grow light properly, and the sun will soon be awake, and the children will have to get up for school soon. There’s just an hour left for them in the bed. “Isn’t it?”

“Three months ago you fought aliens in New York with Captain America, and you want to tell me it’s impossible that you have memories of one of those aliens?”

Laughter shakes from his chest, and turns into a cough. It dies, of course it dies, and he sighs long and he sighs, long and slow and careful. “What am I going to do?” He thought the nightmares were going to fade. They were supposed to fade.

“I don't know, Clint. I don’t know.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for this being a little late folks. I had a medical emergency yesterday (and my FINANCE! Yes IM ENGAGED BITCHES YESSSSSS this is also new from last week) and my fiancee had to take me to the emergercy room. Sorry. I promise it won't happen again

Three months, and no one had come to see him. Thor had brought Loki back in chair, threw him before the All-Father, and for a moment, for a moment, there had been so many All-Father. There all towered above him, and they all spoke in the same harsh voice. Their words made Loki cringe, made him fall to his knees. Thor was behind him, Thor said now, it was Loki on his own underneath the weight of a thousand All-Father’s voice.

“I name you traitor!”

Loki hears the earth snaps. It snaps, and bend, and then everything comes sliding into one place. It is only them; only Loki, only Thor and the All-Father, only the guard positions around the room, stoic and calm. Loki lifts his head up from the floor, his hair falling away, and he sees Odin, in his golden armour, awake and yet still shaking. There is a weakness there, but still Odin sits on the throne.

“And what, father,” harsh and angry, spat out like poison, spat out from his lips like it could reach the All-Father and kill him from there, “have I been traitor to? Thor was banished, you were in the Odin-sleep, Mother place Gungnir in my hands.. So tell me, father, what I betrayed?”

Odin had slammed that same cursed spear down on the ground. Even now, with three month in the cells of Asgard to remember that Odin had said, still he could not remember. It was sucked away in his mind, tucked away where he did not not where to find it.

But the outcome had been clear.

Thor did not come to him, although he promised to be Loki’s brother’s brother and to never stop loving him. Mother did not come to him, despite her promise to be there for him and to always his side of an argument out. There were guards, but they simply shoved the food inside of his cell, or stood outside of the glass and taunted him. He was alone.

Alone, with no friends, not even the half-friends that had been Thor’s and not his. There was no friends for Loki, for the lesser son, the trickster, only those who had put up with him. He lay back on his back, conjured a ball out of the air, and through it in the air with only small amongst of his own mind dedicated to it.  
Loki turns his thoughts to Midgard once again.

The archer, who’s mind had seen pathways in battle when even Loki could not, and still felt the deep pangs of loneliness. His mind, under the scepter, had shown Loki the way to break the Midgardian team apart. There was more there, more that Loki could not see, something in the archer’s brain that had never given away to the power of what the Chitauri had place in his hands.

“Who are you,” Loki wonders, into the silent air of his cell, waiting for an answer, receiving cell. The archer was a mystery, but so were all the others. A Captain out of time, and a face of golden hair that Loki remembered face on the battlefield. The spy, blood on her ledger, and a smile that told him she laughed at all the wrong times.  
“I have waited long enough time.”

Loki stood.

After three months in the cells, the guards had lost some of their interest, in the man who would be king of Asgard and was nothing. The destruction of the Bifrost had released many prisoners, far more wilder than Loki. He watched the guards through the glass, but their eyes were on the men and women fighting each other, on the yelling and the screaming and the threats in the too crowded cells, and not on the prince brought low in a single, small cell.  
He did not bother to hide his vanishing.

Loki reached through between the threads of the worlds, reached for the magic that had been dampened in the cells of Asgard but not withheld, and slipped through. Mother could have stopped him, but she was not there, and in less than a second, Loki was between the fabric of the world, and he was on the world tree.  
The threes between Asgard and the world tree were open, and Loki walked between the parts of the worlds with no struggle. When he looked down, he saw Jötunheimr, separated from him by several branches, but there, steady and cold and so isolated from the rest of the realms. Even with the Bifrost slowly unfolding towards it, it would take some time to reconnect it. He felt a twinge of guilt.

Although not a very large one.

The wind without a source whipped around him, and he bowed his head against the currents, fighting his way, up and up, through the branches of the world tree, grabbing one branch and then another, until he was swinging his legs over the last branch. And though it was only half way up the great tree of the realm, it was still a great distance to climb.

Nestled between two branches, sheltered against the storm of the worlds, Midgard hung, shiny and blue and green, with the white clouds ever shifting above it. A few of their dangling metal satellites hung in the air between the planet and the tree, bouncing in the wind, shifting in the same currents below on the planet. He leaned in, peering for the spot. No, the wrong side. He walked around onto the other branch, and looked again.

Ah.

The archer had never shown him this place, had never let him come him. And Loki had respected that.

For then.

When he thought that the archer was just a Midgardian archer. When there had been only the threat of Thanos, and his push to get back to the Asgard before the titan could rip him into shreds. Asgard was no safety. Perhaps earth could be a half something, a small safety, even simple answers would be enough.  
He reaches for the threads that guard the world.

Slips inside.

Barely a second breathing the muted, simple air, and there is a knife against his throat, and an arrow pointed at his chest. Children run for cover, in a hidden room under the staircase. Loki would tell them that he would not hurt the children, regardless of his motivation, but again, the knife on his throat. It was going to be very hard to talk.


	4. Chapter 4

The air popping had been the first clue. Laura had looked up from where she was serving out breakfast at the kitchen table, and it seems almost like a breeze moving across the kitchen, where she could see the shifting of the colours. It was out of place, and in their lives, that meant danger.

Laura has her knife out by the time that Loki steps through into their kitchen. Her yell sends Clint scrambling for his bow and arrows, diving across the table to the other wall, dishes flying in a great clatter of noise, syrup splashing down his front as he rolls across the floor and comes up. Arrow quickly placed in the notch, his breathing steady, his eyes narrowed.

“Laura. Step away from him.”

He can see where her knife has dug into the skin of Loki’s neck. There’s a rising cut of red blood, smearing the sharp metal blade, and as Loki’s lungs rise in a shallow breath, the cut deepens. She hasn’t given him any space to move.

“I should just cut his throat.”

“I know. But then we’ll have to hide the body.”

Loki’s eyebrows twitch, and if Clint was more willing to be friendly to the invading god, he’d say that Loki looked amused. His hands are down by his side, open, flat, a non-threat even if they haven’t been raised in complete surrender. The knife cutting into his throat doesn’t seem to be phasing him too much.

The moment drags on. Laura has her eyes on Loki, and Clint can’t see her face. He knows the set of her shoulders though, knows how the line of tension has moved across her body. It’s the same determination he’s seen so many times, the firmness in Laura that had once made him recommend her for a SHIELD job, and the same stubbornness that had lead her to flatly refusing him.

And just when he thinks that she still will do it, despite his words, just when he thinks that she will cut the throat of the man who had taken his mind and killed so many in New York, Laura breaks away. She pulls her knife off of Loki with a sharp jerk, and steps to the right, before she steps back. It’s a move that leaves Clint’s line of sight and aim at Loki’s chest with his bow open. The move of the woman who knows how he works, and how he’s able to cover her, and won’t get in his way of making a shot.

Loki smooths his hands down his legs, over the simple trousers, and shifts his eyes to Clint. “Hello.” His voice is soft, unaccented, and Clint can already hear the difference between this pattern of speech and how Loki had sounded when he appeared for the first time in the SHIELD based. “I am not surprised that this is how I am greeted.”

Laura grunts, and grabs a cloth from the oven rack, wiping her knife off with brisk movement. Her eyes are locked on Loki, even as she sits down at her chair, crossed legged and stiff limbed. “And still you came,” she spits, and the anger in her voice shocks even Clint, who has heard her yelling when he comes back injured from yet another mission.

“And still I came.” Loki inclines his head, slow and graceful in a way that seems more royal than any movement than Thor has ever made. That was the echo of the prince that Clint had remember, though even that has toned down. “Surely you wonder why.”

“I’m wondering how you escaped from jail. I’m wondering you long it will take to get you shipped back to Asgard.” Clint steps up to stand beside Laura, and she rests her hand on his elbow. It’s not a call to stand down. It’s a gesture of reassurance, of support, and he feels a wave of calm spread out from his chest.

Loki’s eyes narrow. “I have no intention of allowing myself to be returned to that place.”

“Really. Laura?”

“On it.” He knows the kids are safe. So when she steps away from him, and goes to the phone, he isn’t worried about the fact that none of his family is within his sight light. That Loki is in his house scares him, but he’s got Laura as his reassurance, his steady point. He can track her by her footsteps, moving across the kitchen, to the house phone. When she picks it up and begins to dial, Loki’s face deepens in tension.

Clint can’t help but give a smile.

Loki’s head tilts to the side. There’s something in his eyes- Green eyes, Clint realizes. Green eyes, that are filled with recognition, that seems so much more than the gaze that might be expected by someone who had known him only for the time of the New York invasion.

“Maria? It’s Laura Barton. We need-”

Laura’s voice fades away. The sound of her speaking disappearing, as a wave of feeling and memories washes over him. Loki’s face is the only thing that remains steady, as the rest of the room shifts and fades. It’s like falling into a dream, where the colours go wrong and his stance on the ground feels too unsteady. Clint’s lungs choke up, he’s not getting air. It’s memories, washing over him, like all of those nightmares all over again, except this time, he knows he’s awake.

Loki, shirtless, his chest covered in ritual tattoos and black lines. He holds his hands out to Clint, and there is blade dripping from them. When Clint looks back to his face, there is growing horror over his face. Now his hair is falling down around his shoulders, loose waves that frame his face, and the horror that features across his expression is beyond anything that Clint has ever seen.

Clint blinks, and then it’s gone. Loki stands in his kitchen, and his hands are by his side, and the expression on his face is mere curiosity.

“What- What was that? What did you do?”

“I have done nothing.” Loki simply looks at Clint, and does not move towards him.

“No, you did something.” His hands are shaking, but he can’t make them stop. “I saw you! I keep seeing you! You, in different waves! What the hell did you do to me?”

Laura is coming back. Loki only looks lost. “I left nothing in your mind. Everything that I had done was removed by the action of the Black Widow.”

“Clint?” Laura asks, and she places her hands on his elbows. Clint shudders, and releases his hold on the bow. The arrow drops to the floor. Laura steps around in front of him, and puts her hands over his. Her fingers brush against his palms. “Okay, okay. SHIELD is on their way.”

“He-”

“I don’t think he’s going anywhere. I think he wants answers, just as much as you do. Don’t you?”

Clint looks over Laura’s shoulder, at Loki, who despite the removal of the threat of the bow, has yet to move from his spot against the wall. And, as he meets the god’s eyes, he’s surprised. Loki looks back at him, and nods.

“Indeed, Miss Barton. I am most curious indeed.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is in progress and unfinished - updates every Monday


End file.
